“Russia Ready to Strike Against ‘Terror’ Worldwide”

I welcome Russia to the real fight against terror. It’s heartbreaking that they were forced into this by what happened in Beslan, but it’s encouraging to know that they’re finally pulling the gloves off:

Russia’s top general threatened Wednesday to attack “terrorist bases” anywhere in the world, as security services put a $10 million bounty on two Chechen rebels they blame for last week’s school siege.

. . .

“As for launching pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases, we will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world,” said General Yuri Baluevsky, chief of Russia’s general staff.

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6 thoughts on ““Russia Ready to Strike Against ‘Terror’ Worldwide””

I think the Russians should leave Checnya the hell alone. Maybe if they let them hold a legitimate elections, or didn’t blow the crap out of Grozny every time a small rebel group does anything “naughty” (we could go into their specific reasons-but that might endanger the overall popularity of this world-wide “terrorist hunt” that our western-style society has been propegating with such unabated intensity lately).

Our society’s opinions regarding terrorism are quite fundamentally in deficit if you ask me. We don’t know what it’s like to be truly shat upon by an enemy. We haven’t a clue what its like to have our homes blown to bits, our way of life and government overturned at the whim of foreigners, our friends and families maimed and killed in the savageries of a war fought by our own people against a forgeign government halfway around the world that potentially threatens our rights and autonomy. How can we possibly claim to identify the moral illigitimacy of these “terrorist’s” campaign?

Moreoever, the principals of terror tactics are greatly misunderstood by most members of our western culture. How hypocritical we are condemning the tactics of terrorists as “evil.” Our are hands somehow cleaner than Osama bin Laden, who targeted the beating heart of The West’s economic and military power in 2001? It sounds like he chose his targets appropriately to me! Is it not a travesty to label his actions “evil,” given that our government has done far worse to its enemies? In 1945 we fire-bombed the city of Tokyo, killing 83,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians. I won’t even bother with the details of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these occasions speak for themselves. And don’t get me wrong, we were damn right in our decision to drop both of those bombs, and to burn the wooden city of Tokyo. And these antiquated incidents are merely a few in a long list of “unfortunate neccessities” and “tragic accidents” that our military is guilty of.

Given the opinions, histories, and beliefs of the majority of the people we label “terrorists,” for them to attack or exploit civilian targets is easily as justifiable as our own such tactics. In short, what we have labeled “warfare” when it was performed by ourselves or our allies, we have labeled “terrorism” when it has been performed by our enemies (specifically non-western cultures and minority groups).

Furthermore, to bolster the legitimacy of “terror tactics,” one must contemplate the ability of “terrorist organizations” such as Al Queda and others to wage war against vastly superior forces such as those who have been in the forefront of the war against terror: America, Great Britain, Russia, etc. How else, aside from terror and suicide tactics, can a ragtag group of vagabond freedom fighters, often poor, diseased, and manurished, armed with antiques and with barely a hint of education, hope to do battle with a vast military power equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and a nearly limitless supply of fresh, well-trained troops? Bottom line: they can’t. So what do we expect them to do, say “oh well, I guess I’ll go home now”!? Of course not! Did we when our outnumbered and outgunned Colonial Army did battle with the vastly superior British forces during the American Revolution? Of course we did! We performed all manner of acts widely thought barbarous by the artisans of war of the day; we targeted officers, fired from hidden positions, destroyed incoming British merchant ships, and much more which was considered as evil then as “terrorism” is now.

So how are those fighting for a free Chechnya so different?

Granted, targeting a school is bad press. Granted children don’t deserve to die. Granted killing, war, and hatred are terrible things. But on the other hand, it is undeniably true that the Chechens have for almost 200 years lived under the boot of mighty Russia; it is true that most of the obviously innocent killed in the infamous Beslan school siege were killed in the chaotic crossfire between the rebel and Russian soldiers; it is true that the Russian government’s track record has been rather poor when it comes to considering the lives of hostages in situations such as these (for example Moscow, Oct 23, 2002).

I think it’s about time Putin granted Chechnya more than merely a status of a seperatist republic; I think Russia should finally grant it true independence. If Chechnya is freed, I predict that a much clearer definition of who is an “evil terrorist” and who is merely a “freedom fighter” will emerge, and I predict you will find more of the latter than the former.

A dirty nuclear bomb detonates in downtown Chicago, instantly killing tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands will die because of radioactive poisoning. Al Qaeda claims responsibility. All evidence points to Al Qaeda. Furthermore, after sampling the uranium it has been determined the nuclear material came from Iran. What do you think would be the appropriate course of action?

This is a baited question unrelated to my commentary above. However, I will nibble.

War begats war, and rightly so. If we were attacked (as we already have been), then the natural, justibiable, and reasonable thing to do is to destroy the ones who are responsible.

Now what if the shoe were on the other foot? What if you were the average, uneducated Iraqi male, devoutly Islamic, dirt-poor, and living in a violent squallor. You have no say in this whole war going on between your own culture and a Christian, Western one. You hardly know what’s going amidst the din of invasion and revolution, but you do know for sure that it was an American bomb that destroyed your home and the homes of your neighbors. You know that your friends and family have been deposed, wounded, or perhaps killed in the battle between members of your own society and white invaders from the west who’ve come to tell you how your government should be run.

What is the reasonable course of action for you in this case? I think you’d be fooling yourself to assume you’d see “the bigger picture” and “the greater good” in all of it when confronted with a first-person perpective like that. I’d say it’d be pretty reasonable for many of those people to pick up an AK or a bomb and attack the “western infidels” who’ve come to force a foreign way of life upon them.

Its not unreasonable for militant Islamics in Iraq and Afganistan to assume that any government we allow them to establish will be a puppet of western influence, and that rightly scares many of them into action.

These “terrorists” as we call them have perceived that their way of life, their people, and they themselves have been attacked by western powers such as the US, Russia, Great Britain, etc. They are, many of them, merely retaliating just as anyone who is attacked by an enemy would do. And when they attack us we are correct to defend ourselves, to attack preemtively, and to retaliate by whatever means neccssary to ensure victory and the preservation of our way of life. As long as either side in this war perceives a threat from the other, this war will (and in a sense, ought to) continue.

I think we are mistaken in labeling this a “war against terror” or a “crusade against evil.” We are fighting a legitimate enemy, not a bunch of mindless, bloodthirsty savages who fight everything for no reason. We are fighting soldiers in a poorly-organized, thinly-spread army. We are their enemy, and they are ours. Our relationship is violent, and by nature requires violence. Enemies aren’t always struggling for peaceful resolution, nor shold they be. They fight for victory, just as we do.

So to answer your question, we should kill every last motherF’er in the Middle East if that’s what it takes to ensure our safety and the survival of the sovereignty of our national territory. But we should not dilute ourselves into thinking that other people will not or should not do the same thing to us.

I disagree with nearly everything you say except for your last two paragraphs which I almost completely agree with. We are indeed fighting an enemy that wants to destroy us, and I think it is very important to recognize that.

Ultimately, I don’t really care what somebody thinks is the reasons why they want to kill us, if the person at least acknowledges we are in a mortal struggle where somebody must win. If somebody thinks it’s because we have misguided foreign policy, I will disagree, but I also recognize it is important to always critically examine our foreign policy — so we need people like you. If something turns out to be wrong, then it should be changed.

By the way, the value of understanding WHY an enemy attacks us is invaluable, both in striving for eventual or preemptive nonconfrontational resolution, and in the making of successful and decisive war upon an enemy. Understanding what drives an enemy to arm him or herself against us is one of the most imperative parts of the concept of “knowing thine enemy.”

The reasons WHY a people go to war provide distinction between the clearly evil Hitlers of the world and the clearly heroic Churchhills. The reasons WHY a people go to war validate their effort. We should understand both why we are waging war, and why our enemies are waging war.